Re: Financing of media. 94 02:22:38 am

[Herbert Gintis <gintis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Trond writes,
>Anyway, I have tried to suggest a platform where people like Herb and
>me can agree in spite of  disagreements in political outlook.
>Now I am going to leave that platform, and describe what  I really want
>the most (the communist comes out of the closet):
>
>The main source of financing for TV and Radio should be taken in
>through taxation, not through advertising.

	I still maintain that it is a mistake to prohibit private
commercial stations, and the public in a democratic society not
support a policy of this type. If people don't want to listen to
commercial stations, the stations will not succeed.


>...The reason for this extremist view is that
>I want to REMOVE advertising interests completely (or at least nearly
>so). My experience with those interests is that they exert their
>influence in a thousand subtle ways on the programming profile of a
>station, not the least indirectly through self-censorship....
[stuff deleted]
>The fundamental reason for this insistence on non-commercial financing
>of media may be explained by an analogy: If we look at society as an
>organism, then media is an important part of the brain/nervous system.
>For the health of the whole individual, we have to ensure that it does
>not misuse drugs, because then thinking will be impaired and the
>individual will be damaged in the long run.

	This is a prejudice of yours, Trond, without empirical
support.  There is no scientific sense in which advertizing is
addictive. There is very little evidence that advertizing has a great
deal of effect on people's preferences. There is much evidence that
products pander to the tastes of consumers, rather than vice-versa.
Moreover, you happen not to like the culture of consumerism, and I
agree with you. I prefer to participate in the active life of the mind
and body rather than buying fancy cars and drinking beer, but others
may disagree. Who are we to dictate?

Herb gintis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx